


Waking Up and Flying Away

by Welfycat



Category: Firefly
Genre: Community: whedonland, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-29
Updated: 2011-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-15 05:44:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welfycat/pseuds/Welfycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River is everything, inside her mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking Up and Flying Away

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whedonland calendar challenge

River couldn't remember falling asleep. She could remember being asleep; long winding mazes with shadowy figures moving behind her, hands reaching for her. These were common dreams, dreams that everyone had, dreams she could remember having before she left home. But the difference was that before the dreams had just been firing neurons and her brain making sense of random images combined with primal anxieties and fears. Now the dreams were made from memories and the men behind the hands that reached for her were real. And they were still reaching even now, their long arms stretching across the stars.

Simon told her over and over that they couldn't reach her, when she would wake shivering and shouting. She couldn't control her responses as easily anymore; she remembered waking from bad dreams when they lived with their parents, knowing that she was safe in the house even though she could feel her heart pounding against her ribs and her breath coming in short pants. But she didn't scream then, or run from her room with bare toes pressing down into the thick carpet. Simon knew that she couldn't help herself, that the monsters were too big and real, and simply wiped her tears away with the edge of his sleeve and held her until the shaking stopped.

It was hard, she knew her brother better now than she ever had before. Her brother, her blood and her only family. He hadn't told her about their parents, had said how they'd ignored his pleas to help her. He didn't have to because she had known that when she'd directed her code and her letters to Simon. And she'd written them anyway, even though when she could think clearly enough to write and hide things in her letters she knew that she was going to destroy his life. But she had to get out, get away, or she would wind up destroying a lot more than Simon's life. And maybe one day Simon would understand that.

Simon said he didn't blame her; he said he left and got them on the ship and away from the core and everything they knew because he loved her. And that was true, but it was also true that Simon missed what they'd left and was acutely aware that neither of them would be drifting through space from one port to the next if it wasn't for her. Which wasn't quite blame, not the way that the Captain and Zoe blamed the Alliance for just about everything, but the coloring of the emotion was the same, and the sharp edges that pressed against her and pushed against her mind and her skin.

"River." Simon said again, holding her hands in his as he trapped her in his arms.

She flopped against him like a bird who was certain if it could only get free that it would be able to fly back to its nest. She wanted to be back in her nest; she could feel her heart again, fluttering against her ribs like wing beats, and imagined the feathers growing out of her arms and turning them into wings, and pecked with her beak at the arms that held her.

"Ow, River! Did you just bite me?" Simon demanded, pulling his arm back long enough that she could flutter free and escape past the door that had been left open on her cage. She ran through the ship, seeing branches and leaves, and knotholes where the rest of the flock tucked themselves away. But none of those places was her nest, her tidy little place where she could arrange twigs so very neatly until they were built up all around her.

Simon called after her, but she kept going with her arms out as far as they could go in the hallway, her fingers fluttering with the breeze that swept through her mind and lungs and cleared away the rest of the hands and the maze until she'd left them behind. It would take a while for them to catch back up, even though they would keep coming tirelessly and relentlessly until they caught them all.

She nearly flew directly into a ladder and pulled herself up hand over hand until she reached the top and crawled across the metal webbing until she reached the end where railings surrounded her to keep her from falling down to the bottom of the ship. She rested her head against the cool metal and looked around, realizing that she could see everything and she was hidden from sight and neatly tucked away. She had found her nest, and it was safe and hers; her place on the ship that was away from the noises and the dreams that were wrapped up inside of her blankets.


End file.
